Chapter 3 - Working
Mom's Schedule
Mom's schedule was almost as physically demanding as Pop's. Her day consisted of making breakfast for the children and the roomers, making the beds, doing the cleaning, the washing, and the cooking for the other meals of the day. She was home to serve Pop his breakfast at about 11:30, and to serve lunch to any of the children that might be coming home from school for lunch, and to serve Pop his lunch and the rest of the family their supper. Still, she found or made time to take English lessons at school an afternoon and an evening a week. When she was at school Pop' s supper would have been made and Pearl or Ethel would serve it.
Mom's schedule was also a seven day a week schedule. In about the late 1930s Mom had sufficient money so that she could hire one of our tenants, Mrs (Angie) Muratore on Martin St, to help her with the cleaning one day a week. The children, especially the boys, didn't do much in the way of helping around the house. (Not that the boys were unwilling, but because Mom didn't ask. But, the boys didn't volunteer, either.)
Mom continued taking English classes well after she received she citizenship papers. She used to look forward to her English classes at No. 9 school and at the Baden Street Settlement House. Her teachers, Mrs Jerdone and Mrs Lieberman (no relation), told us how much they enjoyed having Mom in their classes. She was proud of her ability to read and write English, and that she could write letters to her children who had left Rochester. Pop didn't write letters. He would have one of the children write the letters for him.
When we were living at 22 Gorham St, Mom was involved in an accident in which she was badly hurt, but as you will see, the result could have been much worse. She wanted to wash the outside of the kitchen windows. These windows were the ordinary double-hung windows, with an upper section that could be lowered, and a lower section that could be raised. She raised the lower section, backed out through the opening, and sat on the bottom of the window frame facing the glass and held on with one hand while she cleaned with the other hand. In some way she let go and fell to the cement sidewalk below. Fortunately she fell from the first floor and not the second. She broke her collarbone, which was very painful, but it could have been much worse. After the recovered she continued washing the windows, first and second floors, in the same way.
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